WHO WE ARE

Our beat is the labor front, broadly defined, both geographically and conceptually. We examine the world of work and workers on the job as well as where they live. We examine the issues that affect their everyday lives, with a particular sensitivity towards human rights abuses, environmental concerns and the U.S. drive for global domination. We record their global struggles and provide analysis of their efforts to empower themselves and transform society to provide greater democratic, human, social, political and economic rights. Each program consists of feature stories, generally interviews, within a historical context, often accompanied by sound from demonstrations, rallies or conferences, and complemented and enhanced by poetry and instrumental or vocal -- people's culture.

Over the years Building Bridges has produced a weekly one hour program, Mondays from 7-8 PM EST, covering local, national and international labor and community issues over radio WBAI-Pacifica 99.5 FM in New York.We also produce half hour version, Building Bridges National, which is distribtued to over 40 broadcast and internet radio stations.

For more information you can contact us at knash@igc.org
In Struggle
Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash

Say No to Trump’s Sneaky Tip Theftwith Saru Jayaraman, President, Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United
The Trump Department of Labor, backed by the National
Restaurant Association, is moving quickly to push a new rule that will make
tips the property of restaurant owners rather than workers. It recently
proposed rolling back a rule that protects workers in tipped industries,
including restaurant servers and bartenders, from having their tips taken
away by their employers. Under the proposal, federal law would allow
restaurant owners who pay their wait staff and bartenders as little as
$7.25/hour to pofcketand confiscate all of the tips left by customers,
without having to disclose to patrons what happens to the tips. Tips account
for over half of these workers’ income which even together still adds up to
poverty wages. More than $5.8 billion dollars will be transferred from
workers to bosses under this proposal. Nearly 80 percent of the tips that
would be stolen by employers would come from female tipped workers. Many women who work for tips already face harassment and discrimination at
work, and this rule adds insult to injuryto download or play stream

withimmigration attorney, Amy Gottlieb, the
Associate Regional Director for the Northeast Region of the American Friends
Service Committee, who is responsible for supporting programs in the
Northeast Region that focus on immigrant rights and the spouse of activist Ravi Ragbir.An escalating
legal battle is playing out in the case of Ravi Ragbir, Executive Director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, a prominent
immigrant rights activist whose detention by federal immigration authorities sparked
protests that led to the arrest of 18 people, including elected officials of
The New York City Council. Ravi Ragbir, showed up for his regularly scheduled
“check-in” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), at the Jacob Javits Federal
Building in Manhattan and was then detained, as had been the
co-founder, Jean Montrevil of the New Sanctuary Coalition weeks earlier. Both were
immediately transported to the notorious Krome Detention Center in
Florida. Clearly the two immigrants’ rights champions were targeted by ICE and
Jean Montrevil

has already been deported to Haiti while Ravi Ragbir
remains in detention. We’ll examine the cases of these two immigrant rights
activists, to put a human face of the growing numbers of immigrants facing,
repression, detention and deportations under the racist/xenophobic immigration
policies of Trump/Kelley, one two punch Republican juggernaut!

Now, amidst the stories that
are surfacing about sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape against
woman, too often low-wage woman workers have been subjected to sexual
violence against their person in their work place, but their voices have
oftentimes been eclipsed. And, we barely think about the workers who are
responsible for the bounty of food on our tables. So, Building Bridges is
off to join the formidable farmworker women leaders of the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers (“CIW”) for a major "Harvest without Violence" march. The
CIW Women’s Group traveled to the Big Apple to demand a meeting with Wendy's
Board Chairman and major shareholder Nelson Peltz to share their powerful
stories and demand Wendy’s do its part to end sexual violence in the fields.
Join the farmworkers in their Boycott Wendy’s march through Midtown
Manhattan to Trian Partners, the multi-billion dollar asset management firm
founded by Nelson Peltz, the chairman of The Wendy’s Company, based in New
York. Declare that farmworker women should not have to surrender their
dignity for the right to put food on their families’
tables!**************************Download or listen to this 29 minute program

Billionaires Feast on $1.5 Trillion Trump Tax Cut Leaves 99% with Scraps
from their Table and Threatens Medicare, Medicaid and Social
SecurityfeaturingDean Baker, formerly
was an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell University. He is
currently a co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in
Washington, D.C.andAlex Lawson,
Executive Director, Social Security WorksOnly the Billionaires will win bigly with this tax cut for the rich
which offers a sugar coated poisoned pill of benefits for the working class
with threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid down the road to pay
for their party. The massive cut to Corporate Taxes will be permanent while
decreases in the individual rates will be eroded by inflation and then end
in 8 years. The final bill also limits deductions of state and local taxes
only to $10,000/yr while exempting more millionaires from paying the Estate
Tax. According to all credible estimates, Republican claims that the $1.5
Trillion deficit over 10 years will covered by increased economic growth are
overblown. It will leave a $1 Trillion deficit which will give the
Republicans an excuse to attack Medicare, Medicaid and
Social Security.

Chief economist of the AFL-CIO declares Trump tax plan a con game against working people

withDr. William
Spriggs, Chief economist of the AFL-CIO and professor of Economics at Howard UniversityAFL-CIO President Richard Trumka responded to the Trump tax
plan saying “it is nothing but a con game, and working people are the
ones they’re trying to con. Here we go again. First
comes the promise that tax giveaways for the wealthy and big corporations will trickle down to the rest
of us. Then comes the promise that tax cuts will pay for themselves. Then
comes the promise that they want to stop offshoring. And finally, we find
out none of these things are true, and the people responsible for wasting trillions
of dollars on tax giveaways to the rich tell us we have no choice but to cut
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, education and infrastructure”. Dr.
Williams Spriggs tells us why the tax plan is little more than an across-the-board
tax cut for America’s

millionaires and billionaires and wealthiest corporations
at a time of massive wealth and income inequality – and that’s morally
repugnant and bad economic policy to boot!

with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in
HaitiandKim Ives, journalist and co-founder of the
international weekly

newspaper Haiti Liberté

We condemn the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS
for Haitians, and deport the more than 50,000
Haitians who currently live in the United States with that status. These vulnerable people will be
forcibly returned to a country not yet recovered from the devastating 2010
earthquake, and the massive hurricanes and cholera epidemics that followed and
where the country’s political turmoil further places these refugees
lives at risk. Haiti is in no condition right now to accept deportees.
Attorney Steve Forester,

Immigration Policy Coordinator, with the Institute for
Justice & Democracy in Haiti and Kim Ives, journalist and co-founder of the
international weekly newspaper Haiti Liberté discuss DHS’s saying get
back and how we can fight back.

As the saying goes, “some thing's rotten in Denmark” & we’ve figured out
what it is, why it’s the Trumpian tax plan!featuringDean
Baker, formerly was an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell
University. He is currently a co-director of the Center for Economic Policy
Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C.When Trump said that “the
biggest winners” under his new tax plan “will be the everyday American
workers as jobs start pouring into our country, as companies start competing
for American labor and as wages start going up at levels that you haven’t
seen in many years,” you might’ve suspected he was lying, because, well, his
lips were moving. But some corporate media give credence to the idea that
this GOP tax plan is one for the little guy. We’ll talk taxes with economist
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.play stream or download

“The Storms have ripped the clothes off colonialism's devastation of Puerto
Rico” says Luis Rosa Perez!featuringLuis Rosa Perez,
is a former U..S. held Puerto Rican political prisoner of war. He served
almost 20 years in U.S. prisons for fighting to free Puerto Rico from the
colonial relationship it’s had with the U.S. since 1898. In 1999 he and a
group of Puerto Rican prisoners of war were given clemency by President
Clinton. Luis Rosa Perez's commitment to his people is described as
"Sacrifice without hesitation".andRafael Bernabe is a researcher and professor at the
University of Puerto Rico. He is the author, with César Ayala, of Puerto Rico
in the American Century:A History Since 1898 (2007).

Hurricane Irma
and Maria's passing and aftermath have once again brought to light Puerto
Rico’s primordial conundrum: colonialism. Together they have left The
Island in shambles. Luis Rosa Perez and Rafael Bernabe, two of the Island’s
most prominent social change agents survey the damage on the ground wrought
by the storms, whose devastating path through the Island was paved by Puerto
Rico’s status as a US colony. Luis and Rafael take stock of The Island’s
needs and urge us to build support for the Puerto Rican communities Unity
March for Puerto Rico, Sunday, November 19, in D.C., – One People – One Voice
– against unjust laws that have been systematically oppressive and exploited
the people and resources of Puerto Rico and prevented its socio-economic
growth and the sustainability of The Island.

Luis and Rafael
discuss the peoples reconstruction efforts on the ground and their
organizing for self-determination, while they encourage us to
create forceful, sustained political pressure on our leaders until they act
for Puerto Rico – for a commitment to sustain rebuilding efforts; for
transparency and accountability in the delivery of aid; and for the
elimination of the Jones Act and the cancellation of Puerto Rico’s debt
which is crippling The Island’s recovery. listen to stream or download

to Defeat Trump and Move Forward Together
withThe Rev. Dr. William Barber is Pastor of Greenleaf
Christian Church, in Goldsboro, North Carolina and architect of the Forward
Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral
Monday protests which drew tens of thousands of North Carolinians and
other moral witnesses to the state legislature. He has served as
president of the North Carolina NAACP, the largest state conference in the
South. His two most recent books include Forward Together (Chalice
Press) and The Third

Reconstruction (Beacon Press).

And, Dr.
William Barber is the founder and president of Repairers of the Breach, an organization that seeks to build a progressive
agenda rooted in a moral framework to counter the ultra-conservative
constructs that try to dominate the public square.
Rev. Barber one of the most influential, progressive religious figures in the country.

Tens
of thousands of men and women rose up in Chicago and cities from coast to coast to demanding that everyone in America have
the right to organize and join a union and the Rev. William Barber said
“I’m proud to stand with them, because their fight is central to the
battle against poverty, racism, and inequality”.

Earlier this year Rev.
Barber announced an effort by faith and moral leaders to carry forward Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a
Poor People’s Campaign, working across twenty-five states to alleviate
the triad forces of poverty, militarism, and racism that Dr. King knew were
poisoning our country then and still threaten us today.

On Strike, Six
Months & Counting: Spectrum Cable workers headed from the picket line crossing the Brooklyn Bridges to a massive Rally in Foley Square drawing thousands of supporters from the labor and community movements for social change. They built support amongst the public for their fight for a fair contract and to save
their union, amidst a media whiteout of their historic labor
struggle! withIBEW Local 3 strikers and supporters

Some 1,800 members of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 have been on strike at Spectrum/Time Warner Cable in New York and New Jersey since March 28, more than six months ago. Since then, only a fraction of the workforce has crossed picket lines, but the company is trying hard to keep up normal operations by using scabs and subcontractors to break the strike and the workers' union..

Spectrum is part of Charter Communications, the second largest cable provider in the U.S. and a telecommunications giant, providing services to roughly 25 million customers in 41 states, two and a half million of which reside in New York. The CEO, Tom Rutledge, who made $98.5 million last year met with Donald Trump in the White House earlier this year, and the company is touted by Trump as a job creator investing in its U.S. workforce. Meanwhile Rutledge’s Charter Communications has hung its workers out to dry:

Knocking on Labor’s DoorUnion Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New
Economic DividewithLane Windham,
author, Knocking on Labor’s Door; Associate Director of Georgetown
University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and
co-director of WILL Empower (Women Innovating Labor Leadership)

The power of unions in workers’
lives and in the American political system has declined dramatically since
the 1970s. In recent years, many have argued that the crisis took root when
unions stopped reaching out to workers and workers turned away from unions.
But Lane Windham tells a different story. Highlighting the integral,
often-overlooked contributions of women, people of color, young workers, and
southerners, Windham reveals how in the 1970s workers combined old
working-class tools--like unions and labor law--with legislative gains from
the civil and women’s rights movements to help shore up their prospects.

Through close-up studies of workers' campaigns in shipbuilding,
textiles, retail, and service, Windham overturns widely held myths about
labor’s decline, showing instead how employers united to manipulate weak
labor law and quash a new wave of worker organizing. Recounting how employees attempted to unionize against overwhelming odds, Knocking on
Labor's Door dramatically refashions the narrative of working-class struggle
during a crucial decade and shakes up current debates about labor's
future.play stream or download

withNelson Denis, a former New York State
assemblyman, is the author of “War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and
Terror in America’s Colony” and joins us now as we examine Puerto Rico
between a rock and a hard place: betweencolonialism and hurricanes.and

David Galarza, Puerto Rican Independence and labor
activistPuerto Rico is no stranger to crisis. Before Maria’s
rampage through the archipelago, Puerto Rico was already in the midst of one
of the most devastating financial and socio-political crises in its
recent history, with an unaudited $74 billion debt under its belt, $49 billion in
pension obligations, and several decades’ worth of illegal bond issuances and
trading related to its status as an
overly-advertised tax haven. Neoliberal policies such as draconian budget cuts and extreme austerity measures had
already been rendered life in Puerto Rico quite precarious. And the
whole thing was being overseen and managed simultaneously by Governor
Rosselló, an

unelected and antidemocratic Fiscal Control Board, and
judge Laura Taylor Swain, all of whom were going back and forth on the
country’s fiscal management and debt restructuring processes. Now, first
Irma’s and then Maria’s passing and aftermath have once again brought to
light Puerto Rico’s primordial conundrum: colonialism. Nelson Denis
and David Galarza discuss the humanitarian
crisis that is exploding in Puerto Rico, the consequences of the Jones Act and “the junta” and how
nullification of the Jones Act, cancellation of
the multi-billion dollar debt and the implementation of environmentally conscious sustainability
planning are imperative for Puerto Rico to rebuild for its native
inhabitants.

Oscar A. Chacónco-founder and executive director of Alianza Americas, an umbrella of immigrant led and immigrant serving organizations based in the United States of America,dedicated to improving the quality of life of Latino

immigrant communities in the US, as well as of
peoples throughout the Americas. Oscar served in leadership positions
at the Chicago based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human
Rights, the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant and
Refugee Rights, the Boston based Centro Presente, and several other
community based and international development organizations. Oscar
is a frequent national and international spokesperson on
transnationalism,

economic justice, the link between migration and
development, migrant’s integration processes, human mobility,
migration policies, racism and xenophobia; and U.S. Latino community
issues

and

Chia Chia Wang, the
organizing and advocacy director for the American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights
Program, whose goal is to achieve policies that respect the rights and
dignity of all immigrants,

including a fair and humane national immigration
policy.and

Our ‘Dreamer’ Issac, born in Ghana and a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) beneficiary he tells his story and
puts a human face on those who seek equal rights and justice as
immigrants as refugees as

migrants, as Dreamers!

President Trump ordered an end to the Obama-era program
that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling it
an “amnesty-first approach” and urging Congress to pass a replacement
before he begins phasing out its protections in six months. As early as
March, officials said, some of the 800,000 young adults brought to the United
States illegally as children who qualify for the program, Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals, will become eligible for deportation. The five-year-old
policy allows them to remain without fear of immediate removal from the country
and gives them the right to work legally.

Mr. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who
announced the change at the Justice Department, both used the aggrieved language
of nativists of virulently anti-immigrant activists, arguing wrongly, but
aggressively that those in the country illegally are lawbreakers who hurt
native-born Americans by usurping their jobs and pushing down wages. Mr. Trump
said in a statement that he was driven by a concern for “the millions of
Americans victimized by this unfair system.” Mr. Sessions said the program had
“denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same
illegal aliens to take those jobs.” But Oscar Chacón , Chia Chia Wang and
Issac came out

swinging and explode these falsehoods, calculated to whip
up hysteria in in support of the demagogic Trump regime.

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s
Global Trade Watch. andGisela Perez, lawyer and journalist who works at
NGO Derechos Digitales and is a spokesperson of the coalition "Mexico
Against NAFTA", composed of more than 30 civil society organizations and
trade unions. The trade policies
that replace NAFTA cannot be allowed to put theinterests of multinational
corporations first, as the renegotiation of NAFTA under a Trump
administration teeming with corporate interests is positioned to do. We need
an internationalist approach to trade that lifts up labor rights,
environmental standards, and human rights for people in all of the nations
involved in the agreement, and provides good jobs for workers in the U.S.
Trump wants to allow corporations to pit U.S. workers against other working
communities in a global race to the bottom.

To coincide with the
first day of NAFTA renegotiations, Mexican civil society organizations,
including the largest independent trade unions, small farmer and other civic
and human rights organizations, mobilized nearly 9,000 people to march
through the streets of Mexico City to their Foreign Ministry with hundreds
of banners and signs that read “NAFTA Injures You – Mexico is better without
FTAs (Free Trade Agreements)”. Contrary to President Trump’s claims that
Mexico has been the big winner under NAFTA, the dozens of Mexican civil
society organizations that organized the march assert that the current NAFTA
model has been a failure for the majority of Mexicans and that they reject
any deepening of that model through NAFTA renegotiations. They blasted the
secrecy of the negotiating process and delivered a list of demands to the Mexican government.

Lori Wallach says: “A new NAFTA deal that we
can support is a deal that not only stops NAFTA’s ongoing damage, but that
creates American jobs and raises wages. Unless NAFTA’s investor privileges
that promote job offshoring are eliminated and strong, enforceable labor and environmental standards and tighter rules of origin are added, a new deal will not be better for working people, much less deliver on Trump’s promises to bring down the NAFTA trade deficit or create more American manufacturing jobs. NAFTA must be renegotiated to stop its ongoing damage. But depending on how the administration conducts these talks, NAFTA could get worse for working people in all three NAFTA countries. “

Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in
AmericawithJohn Nichols, is the
national affairs writer for The Nation magazine and a contributing writer
for The Progressive and In These Times. He is also the associate editor of
the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, and a
co-founder of the media-reform group Free Press. A frequent commentator on
American politics and media, he has appeared often on MSNBC, NPR, BBC and
regularly lectures at major universities on presidential administrations and
executive power. The author of ten books and has earned numerous awards for his investigative reports, including groundbreaking examinations (in
collaboration with the Center for Media and Democracy) of the Koch brothers
and the American Legislative Exchange Council. A line-up of the dirty dealers and defenders of the indefensible who
are definitely not "making America great again"

Donald Trump has
assembled a rogue's gallery of alt-right hatemongers, crony capitalists,
immigrant bashers, and climate-change deniers to run the American
government. To survive the next four years, we the people need to know whose
hands are on the levers of power. And we need to know how to challenge their
abuses. John Nichols, veteran political correspondent at the Nation, has
been covering many of these deplorables for decades. Sticking to the hard
facts and unafraid to dig deep into the histories and ideologies of the
people who make up Trump's inner circle, Nichols delivers a clear-eyed and complete guide to this wrecking crew.
administration. download or stream

Black Detroit: A People's History of Self-DeterminationwithHerb Boyd, journalist, educator, author, and
activist. His articles appear regularly in the New York Amsterdam News. He
teaches Black studies at the City College of New York and the College of New Rochelle.Herb Boyd excites
and stimulates us with his inspiring, illuminating book that will interest
students of urban history and the Black experience.

Detroit was surely
the capital of 20th-century African-America, as native son Herb Boyd
recounts, this centrality dates back to the American Revolution but became
pronounced at the time of the Civil War, when Detroit went from being an
important station along the Underground Railroad to become an important
source of abolitionism, industrialism, and sheer manpower for the war
effort—including Black soldiers bound for the Union ranks.

As the author
notes, however, the ascendancy of Black Detroit did not mean an end to
racial tension; though he grew up on a block with Italian, Irish, and Jewish
families, “our blackness was for our neighbors an object of derision and
insult.” Boyd celebrates the rising-above that accompanied this ethnic contest, the grit and determination that put Berry Gordy’s Motown on the
map, lifted the members of the Supremes and the Miracles from the projects,
and ushered in a second black literary renaissance through the pens of
Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni. As he reminds his readers, immigrants
and exiles rom other regions and countries did their parts to shape Black
Detroit: Malcolm X lived there before moving to New York and taking a
leading part in the radical wing of the civil rights movement, while Rosa
Parks moved there from the South in 1957. “Parks’s commitment to fight Jim
Crow—North or South —was unrelenting,” writes the author. Though the city
has fallen victim since to outmigration, its population having fallen from
1.8 million in 1950 to about 670,000 today, Boyd writes confidently that the
city’s African-American population will be central to its revival,
concluding, “I’m proud to be a
Detroiter.”**************************play stream or download

Deadly Exchanges: Policing Resistance Movements, and US and Israeli
CollaborationwithEran Efrati,
executive director of RAIA (Researching the American-Israeli Alliance), an
investigative researcher into the Israeli military. He formerly served as
the chief researcher of Breaking the Silence, where he collected testimonies
from hundreds of IDF soldiers about their activities. He has worked with the
ICC and participated in both independent and UN investigations into Israeli
military operations. Currently, his research is focused on international
military and police partnerships between the United States and Israel.
Eran Efrati discusses the
international relationships between the Israeli Military and the
policing/security agencies throughout the United States. We will outline shared tactics,
weapons and policies that are enacted in a war against indigenous and oppressed people in
Palestine, several countries in Africa and across the United States.

A bipartisan Senate bill would make boycotting Israel punishable by
up to 20 years in prison. But a new pushback from groups including the ACLU could help stop the ‘draconian’ measure, says Josh Ruebner of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Uber’s Race to the BottomwithBhairavi Desai, NYTWA Bhairavi Desai, NYTWA
Executive Director A NYS Administrative Law Judge upheld that
Uber was the employer of former drivers, all members of the New York Taxi Workers
Alliance, who won unemployment insurance claims in NYS. This ruling sets
the stage for other lawsuits in cases involving Uber’s assertion that
its drivers are independent contractors. This comes close after Uber’s
loss in a massive wage theft lawsuit filed by NYTWA and massive driver
resistance to Uber imposed fare cuts. Uber’s race to the bottom extends to
all taxi workers by

its flooding the streets with drivers so that making a
living entails countless hours on the road. But Uber’s race to the bottom also
extends to its business model which many
observers contend is not sustainable in light of its continuing financial losses. And now Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was forced to resign by its investors
in a scandal exposing a workplace culture of sexual harassment at
Uber.

*********** ********How Seattle Uber Drivers Won the Right
to Unionize

withJessica Descarieux, the Real News Network
Teamsters' Leonard Smith explains how drivers pushed for a bill
that grants them collective bargaining
power for higher wages since some full-time drivers only earn $3 an hour

Rally Against Republican Health Care Plans that go Straight for the Jugular
and Would Leave Us Hemorrhaging and Fight Like Hell for Medicare for
All!Whether the Republicans pass a version of TrumpCare, or
work to sabotage Obamacare one thing is perfectly clear that health care
should be a universal right, whether called single-payer or Medicare for
all, and that until we implement such a system our lives are in jeopardy.

So, Building Bridges is broadcasting an Emergency Health Care
Rally” THIS IS NOT A DRILL which was held in NYC recently sponsored by Metro NY Health Care for All and Local 1199. Tune into the rally and listen to
health care professionals and we the people as we mobilize for all of us to
call on our Senators and Representatives to oppose bills in Congress that
would gut the Affordable Care Act, decimate Medicaid, place Medicare’s
finances in jeopardy, end family planning funding, and weaken or eliminate
important consumer protections in health insurance. Taken as a whole, these
bills will blow-up our insurance markets, threaten the viability of many of
our hospitals and community health centers, and leave many millions
uninsured.

WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

Listen as we mobilize for
“Medicare for All,” a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency
organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in
private hands. Under a single-payer system, all residents of the U.S. would
be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital,
preventive, long-term care, mental health, dental, reproductive health care,
vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. The program would be
funded by the savings obtained from replacing today’s inefficient,
profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Premiums would disappear; 95 % of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face financial barriers to care such as co-pays and
deductibles, and would regain free choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

Attend our virtual rally
and together we’ll fight for the Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, which would
establish an American single-payer health insurance system.play stream or download

Republican Health Bill Stirs Up Toxic Brew: A Comprehensive Analysis
with U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (NY13
Congressional District)andDr. David
Himmelstein, MD, FACP, distinguished professor of public health and health
policy in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College and adjunct
clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, He is a
co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program a leading single
payer advocacy organization,

from Macbeth A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder. 1 WITCH.
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig
whin'd. 3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time! 1 WITCH. Round
about the caldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw.— Toad, that under cold
stone, Days and nights has thirty-one; Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the
caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue
of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's
wing,— For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 3
WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw and gulf Of the
ravin'd salt-sea shark; Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver'd in the
moon's eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth-strangled
babe Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,— Make the gruel thick and slab: Add
thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingrediants of our caldron. ALL. Double,
double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Cool it
with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. to listen or download

Welcome to New York, Oscar! / ¡Bienvenido a Nueva York,
Oscar!Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera,
recently released from prison after 35 years, much of which was spent in
solitary confinement was cheered as the “Mandela of Puerto Rico” before a
packed house at Hostos College, and we’ll bring you highlights of the
tribute. Rivera, didn’t miss a beat after his decades behind the walls as a
political prisoner, but rather seemed buoyed by his experience and certainly
the ebullience of the crowd and immediately sounded the drum beat of
resistance to the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability
Act, PROMESA and the Act’s imposed junta.

He spoke in pained tones
of the austerity budget that burdens the populace and denounced the wealthy
elite turning Puerto Rico into their playground. He proclaimed loudly and
proudly his ongoing resistance against the colonization of Puerto Rico.
Before his numerous supporters he stood, an undaunted freedom fighter intent
to support the Puerto Rican people in struggle against the most pronounced
manifestations of colonial exploitation and for
independence.

The night was filled with poems such as by acclaimed poet
Martin Espada, folkloric music and dance performances which filled the
auditorium with love for Oscar López Rivera and imbued all in attendance
with the spirit of liberation and self-determination.

Beyond Resistance: A People’s Movement for a Just WorldwithDeborah Burger, Co-President of America's RN Union:
National Nurses United, co-convener of the Beyond Resistance Summit
andSen. Bernie
SandersAt a time of tremendous turmoil
and progressive opportunity, thousands gathered to participate in a historic
convening committed to social, racial and economic justice. Activists came
together committed to a different kind of agenda: a People’s Agenda that can
enhance and expand issue campaigns and hold all elected officials
accountable to popular demands for justice, equality and freedom. You’ll
hear a report back from the Summit, which was envisioned as deepening the
relationship between participating organizations rooted in principled
anti-corporate politics, development of community leaders, direct action,
and strategic organizing to build power and we’ll hear the Summit’s keynoter
Sen. Bernie Sanders.**************************download or listen to this program

Trash Talking Trump Dumps it on PlanetwithSean Sweeney,
director and founder of the Murphy Institute’s International Program on
Labor, Climate, and the EnvironmentEnergy is a core issue for
the world and Trump’s response is more fracking, more gas and coal export
terminals, and more projects like Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline
(DAPL) as he dumps the Paris accord on climate change. Trump is unprepared
to accept the science of climate change, and unwilling to join with the
effort being made across the globe through the Paris climate accord. Trump
is digging a ditch, and the only difference between a ditch and a grave is
that one is normally a little deeper than the other. As Trump seeks to bury
climate justice policies we’ll talk about what are the policies we need to push for and
actions to turn up the

pressure to Save The Planet, and create green jobs. Don’t
Dump on the Environment,

"When Silence is Not an Option" - A Message to the Nation from Rev. William J. Barber, II on Rekindling a Moral Vision for Justice, Movement Buildig and Social ChangewithThe
Rev. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP,
architect of the Moral Monday protest movement, and Repairers of the Breach,
his most recent books include “Forward Together: A Moral Message for the
Nation” and “The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics and the Rise of a New Justice Movement.”"Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the
foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the
breach, the restorer of streets to live in." — Isaiah 58:12

William
Barber, one of the nations’ leading theologians advocates tirelessly for the
rights of the poor, the imprisoned, the disenfranchised and the working
class, obliterating the social, cultural, religious and political barriers
in society. Barber’s Forward Together Moral Movement gained national
acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General
Assembly in 2013. These weekly actions drew tens of thousands of North
Carolinians and other moral witnesses to the state legislature. More than
1,050 peaceful protesters were arrested, handcuffed and jailed, bringing
attention to the actions of the legislature.

Barber’s work is about
building a progressive agenda rooted in a moral framework to counter the
ultra-conservative constructs that try to dominate the public square. He
helps frame public policies which are not constrained or confined by the
narrow tenets of neo-conservatism. He brings together people from different
faith traditions, with people without a spiritual practice but who share the
moral principles at the heart to repair the breaches caused by centuries old
systems of racial and gender
inequality***************************To Download or listen

Whose Streets: The History and Future of Labor ActivismwithSarah Jaffe, an independent journalist
covering labor, economic justice, social movements, politics, gender, and
pop culture. She is the co-host, with Michelle Chen, of Dissent magazine’s Belabored podcast, as well as an editorial board member at Dissent and a
columnist at New Labor Forum. Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt is her
first book. She was one of the first reporters to cover Occupy Wall Street
and the Fight for $15andMark
Brenner, Director of Labor Notes, a media and organizing project that
has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in
the labor movement since 1979. Labor Notes also works with local unions and
community groups to organize Troublemakers Schools, bringing labor
activists together for a day of workshops on grassroots unionism and
skills that officers and rank and filers need.Sarah Jaffe covers the class war one battle at a time. She has
criss-crossed the country, asking people what they were angry about, and
what they were doing to take power back. She penetrates the heart of
these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans become
activists. She attended a people's assembly in a church gymnasium in
Ferguson, Missouri; walked a picket line at an Atlanta Burger King; rode a
bus from New York to Ohio with student organizers; and went door-to-door in
Queens days after Hurricane Sandy. From the successful fight for a 15
minimum wage in Seattle and New York to the halting of Shell's Arctic
drilling program, Americans are discovering the effectiveness of making
good, necessary trouble. Sarah Jaffe captures the essence of the class
struggle, tells the stories of the movers and shakers in labor and community
activities to empower the people towards building a just, egalitarian,
peaceful society.

Mark Brenner knows that we don’t need a crystal
ball to figure out what a Trump presidency has in store for labor: national
“right-to-work” legislation, outsourcing and privatizing more public
services, large-scale deportations, a ban on prevailing-wage laws and this
is just the tip of the iceberg. But that’s precisely when Labor Notes kicks
into gear insisting, “after we mourn, we need to organize”. Mark will talk
about how under Trump, labor must abandon its insider approach and
concentrate on the power of the rank and file and where that’s happening. play stream or download

South African Metalworkers Union Fighting Political Corruption and Building a Socialist Movement

withIrvin Jim, General Secretary of the National
Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), the biggest single
trade union in South Africa. He is a strong critic of the ruling African
National Congress, which he accuses of failing to implement the 1955 Freedom Charter. The Metalworkers union sees much of the leadership of the
ANC as supporting a "post-Apartheid
neoliberal capitalist South Africa with South African and multinational
corporations and the South African white political community". Jim suggests that
NUMSA is a union whose goal is the creation of a "Socialist
Republic of South Africa" . The mission is to convince society that capitalism has failed and a new
worker-centered economic dispensation is required.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) is planning to form a political party to fight
for the abolishment of capitalism The
newly launched trade union
grouping in South Africa – the South African
Federation of Trade Unions
(Saftu) – promises to be a voice for the
growing numbers of unorganized and marginalized workers in the country.

The parliamentary coup that forced President Dilma
Rousseff out of power has resulted in mass opposition to the interim government
of Michael Temer, who has known throughout
Brazil as a golpista. The international community will need to pay
attention, and we will need solidarity with U.S. organizations like the Committee
to Defend Democracy in Brazil formed in February 2016 by artists,
scholars, representatives of human rights movements, women’s groups,
political parties, activists of environmental movements, and sectors of health
services, among many others, whose aim is to support initiatives that
defend the rule of law and democracy in

Brazil. Listen to President Rousseff as she spoke before a standing

room only audience of labor activists in NY, as she decried the

impeachment proceedings as a betrayal and an injustice and how her government was the target of nonstop sabotage. Rousseff said. "The objective was to stop her from governing and therefore allow an environment inviting the coup." Before the cheering audience President Rousseff talked about the opposing forces engulfing the media and sectors of the legislative, judiciary and executive powers, as well as a part of the Brazilian elite, who worked to destabilize the sovereignty of the people and of the Brazilian Constitution. She further insisted that only respect for the laws of the democratic State
brought about by the popular vote would bring stability and prosperity to
the people of Brazil, contributing to the real fight against widespread
corruption and the obstruction of public policies as they are necessary
to national and international growth.

Facebook Badge

BUILDING BRIDGES BASICS

Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report is broadcast weekly in the N.Y.C. to the Metropolitan area over WBAI, Pacifica on Mondays from 7-8 PM EST. Building Bridges and most WBAI Programs are now being archived for 90 Days. They are also being PodCast. These links will be live ca. 15 minutes after the program ends. To listen, download or PodCast archived shows go to http://archive.wbai.org/allshows.php?sort=nameaz

We also produce half hour version, Building Bridges National, Edition which is distributed to over 40 broadcast and internet radio stations.

Minding Business, a semi-monthly on-line publication of the Preamble Collaborative. Minding Business covers grassroots progressive activism and major federal, state, and local legislative initiatives directed toward increasing employment and countering the anti-worker, anti-consumer and anti-environmental shenanigans of corporations and their friends in political office. Each issue also contains economic news and editorials by Preamble staff and guest writers.

National Interfaith Committee For Worker Justice- people of faith who educate, organize, and mobilize the religious community in the U.S. on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits, and working conditions for workers, especially low-wage workers.